


Hearth and Home

by emmaliza



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Cersei is salty, F/M, First Time, Implied/Referenced Incest, Ned is a gift, Period-Typical Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 23:38:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17089895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: Cersei feels no need to hide her disdain for her new husband.It does not go quite as she expected.





	Hearth and Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheEagleGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEagleGirl/gifts).



> For Ari, who is wonderful. <3

For once, Cersei feels no need to hide her disdain. These northerners have made no effort to hide theirs for her, after all, smugly tittering as she shivers her way through the feast, no matter how many logs are piled onto the hearth. It is simply too fucking cold in the North, and Cersei can't imagine for a second spending the rest of her life here. What was Father thinking?

It's only worse when her knew husband, red as a pomegranate but a damned stickler for tradition, shyly whispers to her that he thinks it's time for the bedding ceremony. Cersei scoffs. They say Ned Stark is such an honourable gentleman, but she doesn't believe it. He just wants to tear her clothes off and fuck her, same as any man. “Do what you must,” she says, and steels herself. It's not as if she didn't always know she would have to go through this.

Stark looks wounded a moment, but Cersei refuses to let herself feel any sympathy.

When one of these Northern lords – Cersei can't tell them all apart behind their beards, honestly – calls out across the hall, announcing what time it is, her gown is already half-unbuttoned. She won't let _them_ be the ones to start taking her clothes off, even if she'll let them think it.

She feels rough, clammy hands on her and closes her eyes. _Think of Jaime._ She always thought, when she had her bedding ceremony, he would be but a breath away, all too ready to strike down any man who's hands might dare wander. But Jaime is miles away, trapped in the capital, a glorified prisoner of the Mad King, while she's been sold off to a stranger so Father can have his revenge on the man who humiliated him all those years. It isn't _fair_.

“My lord.” She hears a cold, dark voice and opens her eyes. Lord Stark, still pink as a posy as maidens coyly pull at his breeches, stops to give a deathly glare to the man who put his hands on Cersei's flesh and not her fabric.

The man quickly pulls away with a muttered “Apologies, my lord,” and Cersei raises an eyebrow. It seems that Lord Stark is not one to let any man take liberties with his new wife. For that, she supposes, she is begrudgingly grateful.

The whole process is thankfully quick; these Northerners have never been ones to waste time, for pomp and show. Cersei is ungainly deposited in her new husband's bedchambers clad in nothing but her shift, her nipples poking obscenely through the silk, given how cold it is.

She could try and cover her modesty, but there is no point. Lord Stark will see it sooner or later, after all. If she's lucky, she'll only have to fuck him this one night. Then he can go off to war and die there, and she can go home.

At least, Stark seems more embarrassed than she is, stood there in his underthings and carefully avoiding her eye. “My lady,” he says, trying to seem dignified even now. _Good luck with that,_ she thinks.

“Well, I suppose we ought to get on with it?” she says, grasping her last item of clothing and readying herself to be rid of it. “How do you want me, my lord? Should I lay on my back and let you squash me underneath?” she cuts at him. “Or do you wolves prefer to fuck your women from behind, like a bitch?”

Lord Stark looks up at her, with a concerned frown. Cersei finds it incredibly irritating. Who is he to pretend to care about her feelings? “My lady – Cersei,” he says. They are married now, he's going to have to start calling her by her name sooner or later. “Are you quite alright?”

Cersei stops.

“What does that have to do with anything?” she asks – her voice is still sharp, but also, she is genuinely confused. Why would he ask that? Does he simply want to hear her lie? “Forgive me, my lord, it's been a long day, and I am very cold. I would really rather you just fuck me and let me get some sleep.”

His frown deepens, and Cersei finds herself feeling inexplicably guilty. She didn't mean to upset him. Then again, she didn't mean to care about his feelings at all, and it's quite irritating that she suddenly does. “I'm gathering you're not looking forward to this,” he says, with just a twinge of dry humour.

Her eyebrow flies up of its own accord. “No, what gave you that idea?” she bites.

Lord Stark sighs deeply, disappointed, but not surprised. “Forgive me, Lady Lannister,” he says, and it catches her off-guard. Still, they have not consummated the marriage; she is not a Stark yet. “I did not mean too – well,” he rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably. For the first time, Cersei registers that Lord Stark is not some Northern barbarian decades her senior – for that beard ages him – but he is barely any older than her, seven and ten, maybe. “I know I am not quite what you imagined,” he mutters, and how right he is there. “Your father meant to wed you to Prince Rhaegar once, didn't he?” Ned's voice thickens with anger when he mentions the man who stole his beloved sister, and Cersei can relate a little there. “I'm afraid I don't quite match up.”

_Oh_. Cersei looks over her new husband, and it strikes her hard that he may be insecure. She almost wants to laugh. She's been so stressed about being separated from Jaime, losing any chance she may ever have had with Jaime, but Lord Stark thinks it's all about what he _looks_ like. It's so petty! Cersei should be annoyed, but somehow it's almost... cute.

That should be her first warning sign.

“It's not because you're ugly,” she says, and it doesn't sound terribly reassuring – she _can_ be reassuring when she wants, she can be anything when she wants, but she is still desperately trying to convince herself she does not care what this Northern stranger thinks of her. It is not really working. “You're a perfectly handsome young man, Ned Stark.” True enough. Alright, maybe he's a little long in the face, but his body would put even Jaime to shame. These Northerners train their boys well, it seems. “Really, it isn't personal. I'm only acting like this because I'm angry, that my Father sold me off to a man I've never even met before for an alliance without even doing me the courtesy of asking. But it's nothing to do with you. You've been a lot kinder than I expected.”

Cersei stops. _Now, why in the world did I tell him that?_ She's just given far too much away, made herself vulnerable, and it makes her want to run from the room entirely. She stands her ground though. Lord Stark just stands there a moment, appraising her. “I see,” he says.

And then he sits down on the bed, pulls the covers back.

Puzzled, Cersei follows him, perching on the other side. “What are you doing?” she asks, and Ned looks back up at her.

“Going to sleep,” he says with a resigned sigh, and Cersei is taken aback. _What?_ “If you have no interest in laying with me, my lady, I have no interest in forcing you do so.”

With that, he seems to believe the conversation is concluded, and continues his process of sliding underneath the sheets. Cersei cannot let him go that easily, though. She grabs him by the shoulder and squeezes. “Wait, no, hang on,” she says, on the edge of babbling she's so unmoored, “we have an alliance to seal, my lord, you can't simply _not_.”

And he stops again, looks up at her in confusion. “I thought that was what you wanted?”

Cersei struggles with herself. Yes, part of her desperately wants not to have to fuck whatever man she's been ordered to. But another part of her desperately wants to do what she's been told, to make Father proud. Another part of her wants Rhaegar, or Jaime, or the both of them to come in on horse and/or dragon back to rescue her. Another part thinks Rhaegar ought to burn for what he's done, for having never cared for her or noticed her at all, for having chosen the Stark girl, of all people. She's very confused. But Ned seems kind, kind enough it leaves her rather disoriented.

“Maybe so,” she says, “but I thought securing your family line would be a greater concern to you.”

Ned winces, and Cersei, again, feels a little guilty, for having reminded him of all he's lost in these past few months. Damn him for making her feel like that. _King Aerys has my brother a prisoner,_ she almost wants to tell him, but she's not sure it would help. “I have a brother,” he says, and yes, she knows that – a child no older than eight. So what? “You are to be my wife, Lady Cersei.” He meets her eye. His grey irises don't seem as cold as they once did – he is gentle, she realises. Painfully gentle. “I will not start our marriage by hurting you.”

Cersei's pulse quickens. When's the last time any man seemed to care about whether she got hurt? Only Jaime. Is Ned Stark something like Jaime after all?

As she does not answer at first, Ned simply sighs, and looks ready to get in bed and fall asleep once more. Cersei squeezes his shoulder again. “My lord – Ned.” The name feels foreign on her tongue, and he looks just as bemused by it. Not quite sure what she's doing, Cersei pushes herself forward, and slides into his lap.

His jaw drops open a little as she does it. Cersei gives a tense smile. She may still live to regret this. He may well turn out to be everything she was afraid of – but she does not know that, not yet. Gently, she rocks up and down, rubs herself against his prick still encased in cloth. He gasps softly in her ear, and she smirks as she feels him harden against her. Frankly, she would have been insulted had she got no response from him all night.

“Forgive me, my lord,” she leans in to whisper against his neck, making him shiver. It seems he is sensitive there. That's worth noting. “I have been most unfair on you. I did not mean to be.”

It sounds dishonest. Cersei is not used to being both kind and honest at once. It always felt like she had to choose one or other, depending on what would best serve her.

But perhaps she can try.

Ned gives a hearty groan, and Cersei lets her hand wander down to his waist, teasing him a little. “Let me make it up to you,” she says, his dark thick hair beneath her hand a new experience – but not entirely unpleasant. It makes her feel warmer, funnily enough. “My new husband. Show me you know how to treat me right.”

Lord Stark, looking a little lost under her ministrations, suddenly turns red again. He averts his eyes. “My lady–” he says, coughing awkwardly. “I'm afraid I haven't–”

_Oh_.

“A maid,” Cersei announces, and then she lets out a giggle. She doesn't know why, it should not be such a shock – he's been blushing like a maid all evening. Still, it startles her, the thought that any man would come to her not knowing what he's doing, not like she does. She likes the thought though. She likes the idea of him being hers, and hers alone, and no other woman ever leading him astray.

Ned only blushes deeper at her laughter, and Cersei pauses. Right, that's hardly likely to make him feel better. “Don't worry, my lord, that's quite alright,” she insists, leaning in to kiss his cheek gently. “I will show you how.”

And Ned pauses, pulls back. He tilts his head to the side curiously. “And how will you do that, if your lord father swore up and down that you were a maid yourself?”

She stops. _Fuck_. She's given too much away, and now she has no idea how to rescue herself. _What if he doesn't want me anymore?_

Cersei is just about to panic when she feels strong, square fingers squeeze her hip. “I don't mind.” A whisper. Cersei meets Ned's eye again, puzzled, and he too seems surprised by what he's saying, brows knitted together in confusion. “I mean... what you've done before now is no business of mine,” he says, and Cersei blinks. She would have thought he'd think everything about her was his business. Is that not what being a wife means? “I do need your word though, that from now on you will be true to me, and me alone.” He gives her a serious look. “We are man and wife; your honour and mine are one now.”

She swallows the lump in her throat. _I can never tell him about Jaime_. Him accepting her having lost her maidenhead is one thing, but who she lost it to... She always used to tell herself that Rhaegar would understand, being a Targaryen at all. Why should Ned Stark?

Still, part of her is already plotting ways she might suggest the situation that he would not mind, honour be damned.

It should worry her that she wants to.

Cersei smiles and nods. “Of course, my lord,” she says, and if it is a lie, well, she can figure how to make it alright later. Then, for the first time:

He smiles at her.

Cersei barely sees it a split-second before she's being drawn in for a kiss, small, shy and hesitant. She almost wants to laugh again at just how careful this wolf is being, and she quickly takes control, grasping his dark hair and prizing his lips apart with her tongue. He lets her. She pushes him back on the mattress and feels a wetness grow between her legs, enjoying the thought of being the one to deflower such an honourable maid.

Perhaps, in fact, this will all be alright.

 


End file.
